BTVS Episode Poll: 6.11 Gone
Here we are, at the halfway point of season 6, with Gone! (Otherwise known as, the episode where you let your star take a vacation...)
( Gone poll behind the cut )
( Gone poll behind the cut )
Comments 33
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EXACTLY. She "wants the fire back", "I just wanna feel"; she tries to connect with Spike in a meaningful way, as well as turn to him as a "release value" of sorts. Those aren't the words and actions of a person who WANTS to die.
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It's true, he seems less consistently written than either Buffy or Willow. It might be because his role is almost defined that way -- Buffy is the heroic leader, Willow is the brainy second, and Xander is the other one. He's the Ron Weasley. But being "the other one" means it feels like sometimes he gets characteristics pushed onto him as a catch-all. (Although, mostly, that seemed worse in earlier seasons.)
I'm willing to buy his role as heart of the group -- emotion and strong loyalty do seem like pretty consistent character traits for him. But anything about perceptiveness ? Please. That's Spike's role.
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Everyone on this show is a pretty unreliable narrator especially when it comes to themselves anyway. And Xander has always been insecure (secure people don't need to be jealous or police other people's - Buffy's - love lives); so he's got a lot of ways to mask or cope with that - play up to the insecurity (poor me, no one notices me), exaggerate your confidence or your better qualities (fake it 'til you make it) while simultaneously falling down in those same areas, etc.
Actually all of the men on the show are extremely insecure about themselves and their identify, as much if not more so than the women.
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*This also always struck me as weird on top of immoral; does anyone not expect someone in her early 20s to live with a roommate?
7. I think it's the start of an uptick, certainly, but I'm not sure there's ever one single turning point on something like this.
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Or not to have a boyfriend who sometimes sleeps over, for that matter. But that scene has always struck me as if Doris goes in having already made up her mind that Buffy is an unfit guardian, and so every little thing she observes seems to reinforce that and every comment she makes is tinged with disapproval. Which is one thing when it's observing that Dawn is late, and quite another when asking if Buffy lives with another woman.
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don't attack someone who is doing her job, address the systemI suppose I see Doris Keller a bit differently -- as a petty tyrant, the sort of person who doesn't have much power, but takes a sadistic delight in exercising the power she does have. I've encountered a lot of people like that in bureaucratic positions over the years -- the person who tells you that you failed your driving test or you bounced a check or the thing you want is sold out or you can't do that here or you filled this out wrong or the rules don't allow that, and they obviously get a nasty little satisfaction from their power to make you unhappy. Institutional trolls, maybe ( ... )
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P.S. This wasn't one of your poll questions, but I just wanna say that this is the episode when Buffy's (long) wig is the wiggiest ever. *shudder*
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That wig is SUCH a wig. It makes her look like a Brady Bunch guest star. Bonus features somewhere on there talk about how the whole haircut thing was because the actress cut her hair, so they were scrambling to catch up.
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I also don't like how at the beginning of the episode, Buffy is saying how she's a terrible friend for not noticing that Willow was "drowning", but at the end, when Buffy confides to Willow that until recently, she wanted to die, Willow doesn't react at all, much less suggest that she should have noticed how much Buffy was struggling. I don't know, I just found it to be an unsettling way to depict their friendship.
I have a hard time buying that Buffy has turned a corner emotionally - she doesn't seem significantly happier or more at peace in Doublemeat Palace, Dead Things, or AYW.
On the plus side, I DO think her hair is adorable!
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I don't like that either, actually. It seems like it might be another artifact of Willow's race to the bottom being dramatically sped up -- it's the kind of sentiment that might make sense a few episodes from now, but we're too soon after the peak of dealing with Buffy's own pain.
at the end, when Buffy confides to Willow that until recently, she wanted to die, Willow doesn't react at all
I've always interpreted that a lot more positively -- as Willow just accepting what Buffy has to tell her, instead of jumping in to try to fix it.
she doesn't seem significantly happier or more at peace in Doublemeat Palace, Dead Things, or AYW
Not exactly. But I do think she's turned a corner -- one which can be very important -- I think she's gone from "why the hell do I feel like this?" to "I think I'm kinda depressed."
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